


discretion is the better part of Valor

by siojo



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Pokemon GO - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-05 21:39:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13396767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siojo/pseuds/siojo
Summary: In which Marco and Ace share a Pokemon Go account because Ace's phone is too old.





	discretion is the better part of Valor

Marco gets Pokemon GO downloaded onto his phone three hours after midnight the night it comes out while he asleep.

He wakes up to a post it note on his screen and 20% battery, already knowing it’s Ace’s fault.

‘That Pokémon game that I’ve been waiting for finally came out, but my phone doesn’t support it. :(.’ Ace’s scrawl is even harder to read early in the morning. ‘Our starter is Charmander.’

Marco blinks slowly at the note and understands less than he normally does. Instead, he stumbles to the bathroom to get ready for work, putting the game out of his mind until he’s at the office.

The start-up music is loud, enough so that Marco slaps his hand over the speakers and shakes his head as he thumbs down the volume. He blinks at the tiny person that appears on screen, his head tipped to the side.

The username isn’t AceOspades like Ace normally uses in games, the name FireBirb in the corner by the bar that measured how far away from the next level they were.

Marco backs out the app and pulls up messenger, hoping to get up message to Ace before he went to sleep.

‘FireBirb?’

'Fire for me and Birb for you.’ Ace answers almost instantly. 'We are the mighty FireBirb.’

Marco rolls his eyes and goes back in, prodding a button that pulls up the list of Pokémon that Ace had caught the night before.

The highest level is 1350 and it belongs to a fire unicorn named Striker. Beside it is a fire cat, maybe a fox, called Flareon only a hundred points under that. The weakest is a fire lizard with 55 called Phoenix.

He scrolls through the fifty-something Pokémon that Ace caught in the course of the night, a disproportionate amount of them were something that Marco would use the word fire to describe.

Marco jolts when his phone buzzes, bouncing in horror and exiting back to the map to find a fire dog, like the one that Ace had named Stephan, on the map before him. He taps and startles when it appears closer and he throws the balls that appear at the bottom of the screen and catches it. Marco grins.

There’s a strange thing at the front of the building in yellow, Marco taps it and blinks as he appears to get himself in the middle of something, tapping at the screen until he wins. When he gets back to the map, the things is gray and empty, he taps it again and next thing he knows the thing belongs to him?

“Morning,” Izo says breezing past only half an hour late, “Has Pops come in yet?”

“No.” Marco answers as a purple rat looking thing appears on screen. “Neither has Thatch. Or Curiel.”

Izo sighs, “Thatch is always late,” He pulls out his own phone and starts doing something. “Ugh.”

“Ugh?”

“The gym at the office is held by Valor.” Izo pulls a face. “Who is FireBirb?”

Marco blinks, already knowing what he has to do, “We have a gym?”

“In the Pokémon GO app,” Izo answers, “We have a gym and two convenient PokeStops. Played a bit last night.”

“That’s what Ace downloaded onto my phone.” Marco says slowly.

Izo laughs, “Ace needs to get a new phone.”

-

Ace lounges over Marco’s bed, phone in his hand and Pokémon music loud in Marco’s room. His feet kicking back and forth.

“Sabo said that FireBirb took over the gym at your work,” Ace says going through everything that Marco caught at work. “Good job.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing. I just tapped the screen. FireBirb?”

Ace hums, “Yeah. Normally you don’t play any of the games that I play, so I figured it wouldn’t be cool to use my personal username and you were sleeping. So the FireBirb came to life.”

“You’re ridiculous. And a fox appeared.”

“Eebee!” Ace shouts tapping horrified and relaxing only after it was caught. “I need all the Eebees, Marco.”

“Eebees?”

Ace nods, “E-e-v-e-e. Eebee.”

“Wouldn’t that be Eevee?”

“Shush, they are Eebees. They are cute little Eebees, Marco, the cutest.” Ace insists.

Marco rolls his eyes, “ So Eebees. Why do you need all the Eebees?”

Ace bounces upright on the bed, eyes glowing, “The Eebee, Marco, is the very best Pokémon to have because it will evolve into any of three Pokémon.”

“Wait, what’s evolving?”

“Most Pokémon can change into other Pokémon,” Ace pulls up Flareon. “This was once an innocent Eebee.”

Huh, Marco tilts his head to the side and stares at it, the Eevee was pretty cool.

“And in later games, the Eebee gained five more evolutions. But don’t worry about them,” Ace assures. “They aren’t in the game.”

Marco nods and understands nothing.

-

Pokémon is fun, for all that Marco isn’t too sure about what happens in the game. It doesn’t always make much sense but it isn’t the worst time.

Besides, it means that Ace is around more and Marco can get behind that.

“FireBirb is going down today!” Izo declares throwing his fist up. “Today, I, Flintlock, shall take this gym!”

Marco ignores Izo’s shouts and checks the paperwork in his inbox. There’s a file that Pops wants double checked for errors before they send it to the customer.

“No!” Thatch shouts rolling his chair into the walk space between Marco and Izo’s cubicles. “Team Mystic can’t take down this menace. I, seachef, will lay claim to this gym.“

Marco rolls his eyes and checks the gym curiously. The Flareon in the gym is over 1000 cp and there’s a second one that Ace set up that’s bordering on 2000 that he can use to wipe them out with or put in. The gym won’t leave his hands.

He wins.

He doesn’t even have to change the Flareons out. Which is nice. There’s another gym down by Ace’s station that he wanted to take over.

'How r the kids’ Ace texts later after both Izo and Thatch have lost horribly.

It’s a joke of a sentence, something said for a laugh, but it makes Marco’s heart clench and something warm curl in his chest.

‘Fine, we still own the gym.’

‘My eebees?’

Marco smiles, taking the time to take a snapshot of the Eevees and send them to him, having caught two more of them because of the Poke-stop that is just at the edge of his building and his character is well within the range of. It’s kept well lured by the Pizza place that it represents.

‘EEBEES!’ Ace exclaims. ‘Look at all of them!’

‘They’re fine,’

Ace sends him a text that’s full of random letters and symbols, as if he tapped random buttons and then hit send.

‘Yes, they’ll be ready to go when you get home dear.’

‘Thks Darling!’

Marco drops his phone onto his desk and groans.

~

“Kids!” Ace shouts taking Marco’s phone before he’s gotten through the door. “How are you, babies?”

“I evolved the weird crab, now it is a bigger, weirder crab,” Marco says tugging off his shoes and dropping his sweater over the back of the couch.

Ace bounces excitedly, “Aw, one of you grew up!”

“I don’t think they can understand you,” Marco resists the urge to call Ace sweetheart because that would be going too far.

“Don’t listen to him, dad’s just cranky because he’s been at work all day.”

Marco bites the inside of his cheek, “Hungry?”

“I am ashamed that you even thought to ask that,” Ace returns sliding Marco’s phone into his back pocket. “How was your day?”

“Long, Izo tried to take over our gym and I beat them horribly, you?”

Ace slides into one of the stools at the breakfast nook, “Slept, harassed Luffy into doing the dishes, actually saw Sabo while he was also awake. Worried about our children.”

Marco ignores the flutter of his heart, the butterflies in his stomach as they eat and Ace launches into some story about something. Marco misses out on the point of it and doesn’t bother to ask.

“I love your bed,” Ace groans, flopping down on it as Marco moves to his desk, dishes in the dishwasher and kitchen cleaned. “It’s the best.”

“Shoes!” Marco warns, turning to catch Ace spread out over his sheets and turning to his computer quickly.

It’s Ace’s fault, all of this because now Marco is imagining them as married and he can’t. He’s spent years shoving aside this stupid crush and he won’t have this ruined because of a joking comment.

~

Ace frowns at Marco’s phone, the Poke-stops closest to the station are all lured and there’s plenty of Pokemon around to keep him from going crazy since his other duties are done.

“You okay?” Jiru asks, dropping into a seat. “Brought you dinner, courtesy of Thatch.”

“Thanks,” Ace grins, “I’m good. Just running on less sleep than normal, I wanted to see Sabo today, you know?”

Jiru laughs, “That’s what you get for working such polar opposite work hours. He’s still working for that Politician, ain’t he?”

“Yeah, Lu’s dad.”

“That is not a tired face, however, I would know I have more siblings than you have fingers. That’s a mooning face.” Jiru states with the ease of a man who knows he is right. “Tell me.”

“I might have made a joke about family, or about us being together, and he played along.”

Jiru stares at him, “You are adorable. That is adorable. I need to tell Marco about this,” Ace pales. “Oh,” Jiru grins, looking far too pleased with himself, “but you mean Marco, don’t you?”

“Hate you,” Ace mutters. “Should ban you from the station.”

“You can try,” Jiru promises, “But I think you’ll break in under a week, you like the lunches too much.”

Ace doesn’t deny it, it’s not inaccurate after all.

“Are you here to harass me too? Because I’m gonna have to take my lunch and tell you to leave.”

Jiru grins, “You could, or you could let me stay and tease you about your crush.”

“It’s not a crush!” Ace shouts, ducking his head as the rest of the station glances down to them. “It’s not,” He hisses softly.

“It’s not?” Jiru asks. “Then what is it?”

Ace doesn’t have an answer and Jiru doesn’t push. He waves Jiru off, staring at the screen of Marco’s phone as he waits for his shift to finish.

~

Marco groans when Ace bounces onto his bed, “I’m suppose to have the day off, which means sleeping in, not being woken up by you.”

“I wanted to show you what I caught at work!”

Marco holds his hand out for his phone, thumbing down the brightness and blinking sleepily at the screen as he scrolls through to look at whatever it was that Ace had caught.

He blinks, reordering the Pokemon when he catches changes to some of their names. He laughs, dragging Ace closer, grinning.

“Really?”

Ace grins hopefully, “So?”

“I think we have to date before I marry you,” Marco answers, kissing him. “But if you want, you can try again after dinner tonight?”

“It’s a date,” Ace agrees, “Tonight.”

“Tonight. Now let me sleep, some of us are still tired,” Marco yawns throwing a blanket over Ace’s face.

“I’m taking the kids for the morning!” Ace laughs taking Marco’s phone as he rolls off the bed. “Expect them back by noon!”

“They better be well rested!” Marco shouts after him. “I don’t want to have to deal with cranky kids!”

Ace shouts something affirmative back as Marco sighs and stares at the wall of his room. There was no way he was getting back to sleep anytime soon.


End file.
